AtmanIsBrahman

Lately, when I watch a movie, I actually watch it. That means that I become the movie—I’m not an ego looking through eyes to see the screen, making my own judgments about the characters and plot. No, I’m actually being all of the characters, the plot, the themes, with no ego. The crazy thing you realize doing this practice is that Consciousness has insane variety, and it includes both the good and the bad from a human pov. Movies allow biased humans to expand their limited frames and peek into universal Consciousness. The funniest thing is that they mostly aren’t aware they’re doing this. Directors think they’re making a movie, getting actors, thinking through everything; really they’re participating in Consciousness. Most people don’t realize the insanity of movies because they don’t allow themselves to be touched by them. The ego constructs a protective barrier so that the contents of a movie will be experienced from the ego’s perspective rather than as Consciousness, which reduces the impact. This is why people are able to watch horror movies. They protect themselves—they aren’t actually watching the movie. This is the reason why children aren’t allowed to watch horror movies. They haven’t fully built up the ego, so the contents of Consciousness communicated through the film enter into their mind. Then they get nightmares and things like that. To actually watch a movie as Consciousness, it takes an exceptionally strong human. Only consciousness watches consciousness; a human does not watch consciousness. A human cannot experience being possessed by a demon inflicting terror on a victim and being the victim at the same time. It’s actually mildly traumatizing to watch a movie like this. But there are also good sides to movies (of course from the human POV because it’s relative). Many movie are more upbeat and jovial. These are more pleasant for the human, but still the human cannot take in the grandiosity of Bliss or Love. Every movie is a figment of Consciousness representing archetypes. The theme is CONSCIOUSNESS. I can only assume this would be extraordinarily amplified on psychedelics. I think this is what Leo was talking about with “integrating himself as the spider queen.” For those who don’t know, he talks about it in Reading a Poetic Description of God-Consciousness. @Leo Gura @Davino @Inliytened1

Yes, they're more impressionable. More of what's in the movie affects them, whereas adults stay emotionally closed.

I’ve been thinking about making this post for a while. I just want to alert you guys to the fact that looks are important for dating. Pickup is nice and all and does help, but our looks matter more realistically. If a very attractive guy does pickup, he will have WAY better results than an average person, let alone someone below average. Let me clarify that I’m not one of the ideological “blackpilled” looksmaxxing people who have been circulating lately. But I have looked into the looksmaxxing space to extract the juice and leave behind all the resentment, ideology, and noise. Why are looks important? Simply put, we evaluate people’s attractiveness almost instantly, as a biologically ingrained mechanism. We essentially have a perfect looks-rating device that we use unconsciously, though we ironically can’t give accurate ratings (people are rated 7/10 on average, which is stupid). Looks are an indicator of genetic quality and there are good survival reasons for why we value them. Doing the whole Owen Cook pickup thing is ineffective if you look bad. Even granted that it helps you get better with women (and I don’t really care to debate how much it does), it’s silly not to be optimizing the other factor that makes you have success with women— looks. Now I’ll evaluate Leo’s looks profile. This is just an honest assessment and not a personal attack. Leo is 6’2. This is a huge advantage in attractiveness, as height is a big factor in addition to facial harmony. The average male height is 5’9, so Leo towers over the average male by 5 inches. Think about this in a club environment—Leo is able to see above other people and actively heightmogs the vast majority of people. 6’2-6’3 is also often considered the ideal height, as beyond that there are diminishing returns and a degree of “freak effect.” Next, Leo is not attractive but not unattractive either facially. I’d estimate he’s probably slightly above average. But what’s interesting is how he has unknowingly looksmaxxed subtly, which is ironic given the emphasis on pickup. The biggest looksmax by far is having a low body fat percentage, which makes your facial structure more visible. Fat is bad for looks, and the ideal range is considered to be 8-12 percent body fat (depending on your specific genetics). Leo is quite lean, far more so than the average person. Additionally, Leo’s facial hair covers a likely suboptimal lower third (chin and jaw area), which is another effective looksmax. So what if Leo was 5’9, overweight, and had no facial hair? Would the results be the same? My point stands. The practical upshot of this is that improving your looks is helpful and worth doing. There is a lot of research into this subject you can do, and you have a choice how far to go, from softmaxxes (non-invasive things like hairstyle, clothing, skincare) all the way to hardmaxxes (surgeries). Obviously be safe and don’t buy into the incel ideology BS. Objections: Looksmaxxing isn’t spiritual. True, but getting laid isn’t spiritual in general; it is survival. If you’re doing survival, might as well do it effectively Why change your face? That’s so insecure/feminine/low-consciousness. Look, being attached to how your face looks is classic ego. The stigma against rhinoplasties is a part of this. If someone wants to improve their nose based on objective considerations and they are well-informed, surgery is awesome. There’s also a certain beauty to aesthetics for their own sake. By looksmaxxing, you are mainly just doing a survival activity, but since you’re focused on the actual truth of attraction, it is a microdose of spiritual embodiment— as it’s closer to truth than “coping”. Spirituality is just seeing the Truth.

Leo is finally teaching us the squirrely alien consciousness space kangaroo spider queen crocodile 😁

Looksmaxxing doesn’t have to affect your inner game at all. Physical attraction is something that can’t be faked with game. Women care about physical appearance too, not just men, so why not improve it? This strikes me as ideology. Honestly, I doubt that Owen Cook or a lot of these people can actually consistently attract women when the cameras are off. It’s physically almost impossible for a woman to be attracted to Owen Cook.

You are Christ. Only need to invoke yourself. Christ is your spiritual gatekeeper. Just walk through the gate.

A lot of y’all are massive cope artists

You can always do both. Aside from that, are you aware of the halo effect? People treat you better if you look better, even in non-romantic settings. This alone is a reason to investigate looksmaxxing. I’m actually most interested in this from a pure philosophy perspective. How is it that looks are so important, yet society has a taboo on talking about them? Somehow we don’t want to face the underlying forces affecting interactions; we just want to act unconsciously. How is it that people rate themselves a 7 on average? That’s an amazing lesson in self-bias right there! I think much of the mainstream reaction against looksmaxxing is because it’s so outside of our paradigm of how attraction works that it shatters our worldview and we feel like we have to reject it. “What, you think looks matter more than personality? You’re such an awful person.” This is how collective ego protects itself. The looks/blackpill thing is a fascinating aspect of our survival as humans. I see it as a hard truth that you learn anyway, because you love truth.

And many more things too. A rhinoplasty is quite safe and effective, provided you know what you’re doing and it actually improves your face. A genioplasty is also perfectly reasonable for a recessed chin. Wearing contacts instead of glasses improves looks in the vast majority of cases—and colored contacts can improve coloring. Going to the gym and keeping a low body fat drastically improves your physical appeal. I could go on. I think if you’re in the dating/pickup scene seriously, you should be doing some looksmaxxes.

Clav is actually a complicated case because he did a huge variety of looksmaxxing procedures throughout puberty (all of which is documented on looksmax.org) and definitely changed his appearance as a result. For example, he injected testosterone from age 14, which changes facial structure to make it more masculine. This only works during puberty. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure Clav would have looked above average regardless. But the hypothesis that he didn't significantly improve his looks is very unlikely. I don't think it's purely performative. He genuinely believes in the whole looksmaxxing ideology. How would you rate the percentage of looks vs game roughly? And if it turns out you actually can improve your looks significantly, wouldn't it be worth doing? @Leo Gura

It's objective in exactly the way I said it is. Of course, everything is Absolute Beauty in a sense, but this is not what we're talking about. You have to separate uses of terms for different contexts. There is actual science behind this and I already gave you an introduction which you can research further if you so desire. If you want to be closeminded, go ahead. You are approaching this from a perspective of "I am the more conscious/intelligent one; it is on my opponent to provide the evidence or else I was right." Hope this doesn't trickle over into spirituality lol.

I get the sense that you’re being close-minded and not approaching this in good faith. But I’ll assume the best. First, I already explained why looksmaxxing is new. As for the validity, my claim is basically that attractiveness is objective and can be improved. Here is a video showing how these measurements are objective: This video dives into the eye area using science: How I understand it? The first thing to do is really learning about what makes for an attractive face and body. Then you can make changes accordingly. How do I know that the ideal standard is accurate? From cross-referencing various sources, combined with my own direct experience of what looks good. The science is really just making explicit what we already know subconsciously through our biological programming. And we all have an aesthetic eye. Once you have some knowledge, you can analyze your face and then decide what changes to make. You may decide to make none at all, which is fine. Here’s an example of what this looks like (male perspective). You may find out you lack facial angularity, which contributes to perceived masculinity and attractiveness. A solution to this is getting lean—most people underestimate how lean is ideal and don’t realize their face would be improved from leaning out even if they aren’t conventionally speaking overweight. Getting lean reveals your facial structure. Let’s say you get lean and see some improvement, but it’s still not great. In that case there’s not much you can do, but an easy softmax is growing a beard, which will cover up the lack of angularity in the lower third. Of course, this is still inferior to having good angularity, which is basically just genetic. This is just one example of a possible looksmax, and you would just keep applying this to yourself to whatever extent you want to.

I'm not sure what you mean by "your" data. That's not what data is by definition. Yes it is. It was citing actual studies. This honestly makes me doubt your intelligence. If you actually read the response carefully, you would see that it's an adaptation of research that mostly started in the 70s and became more solidified by the 2000s and 2010s. I'm not. Why are you lacking in openmindedness and critical thinking on this topic? Look, I'm just trying to fill a gap on this subforum. If you're interested, why not research yourself rather than asking me to provide the studies or my thought process so that you can correct it (while assuming you're right from the get-go)? If you don't want to, that's fine too.

I see your point-- I am mostly just theorizing. But it's also disingenuous to say pickup artists were doing genuine science. If they neglect a huge variable (looks), that's not good science in my book. He has a point. The looksmaxxing space is very ideological and gross. But there is a lot of truth behind it too. I think Leo's position is that looks do matter quite a lot, but they aren't changeable. I would disagree with the latter part-- they can be meaningfully changed by just about everyone, and of course some more than others.

I asked claude about the looksmaxxing/attractiveness science timeline. Here's an excerpt of what it said: Anyways, looks are objective not subjective, they are cross-cultural, and recent advancements are actually... well, recent.

I can give a more detailed response later. Essentially, noticing these principles is a recent phenomenon. You didn’t see people analyzing each part of a face scientifically 40 years ago. It’s in part due to gender roles changing, plus survival being easier, contributing to men caring about appearance being actually feasible sociologically. It’s quite easy to see how looks could be objectively studied. What makes men see a woman as hot? (They generally agree). Well, obviously it’s something about the facial features. Same thing with male celebrities. Take an attractive male celebrity and mess around with his face in photoshop. What makes him look worse if you change it? That is a factor in looks. You get the idea.

@Natasha Tori Maru It’s not true that women have been looksmaxxing for ages. Yes, they have done makeup, but looksmaxxing is much more detailed, broad, and extensive than just that. For example: Do you know what the FWHR is? Facial width to height ratio. In males, the ideal is close to two. It signals dominance and untrustworthiness. People with a high FWHR are considered more likely to cheat. This is based on science by the way, not just stuff made up by looksmaxxers? Do you know what the three facial thirds are, and how they should be proportioned and men and women? Looksmaxxers have this down to a science. Do you know what makes a good eye area? Most people think it’s eye color. Really, it’s a combination of features in the eye region— in males, dense and lowset eyebrows, minimal upper eyelid exposure, deep set eyes, narrower rather than round eyes, lack of scleral show (white of the eye underneath the iris), a clear sclera with minimal red, etc. See? This is very detailed, and it 100% is new. People were not talking about these things in 1980.

Not sure what you mean. If you’re saying it’s better to stay in not knowing about whether looks or game is better, that’s fair, but my point is more about taking the looks part seriously as they aren’t mutually exclusive. The balance could be 65% game and 35% looks and it would still be worth paying attention to looks.

Colored contacts are good. Blue often works well, though you have to make sure it looks natural. Gym is good for sex appeal.

Pickup is a good skill to have, but looks are at least as important. It’s honestly a huge gap in understanding on this forum (which is fine because spirituality is the focus) that getting girls is just about doing the correct psychological things. We judge other people’s attractiveness practically instantly. It’s a biologically ingrained mechanism. Pickup will not work well if you’re below average looking. It’s not that hard to do some amount of looksmaxxing, and it has clear benefits.

I think most of you guys hugely underestimate the role of looks. Here’s an excerpt from a looksmax.org post (full post here: https://looksmax.org/threads/why-even-looksmax-guests-and-new-users-please-read.18461/) Pretend you’re a girl (if you aren’t). 1. This guy approaches you and says “Hey, you put that cute outfit on for me tonight?” Now how did that make you FEEL? Probably laugh at his cockiness and reject his pathetic ass right away. “Hey, you put on that cute outfit for me tonight?” Now how did that make you FEEL? A little different hm?

I want to address a simple problem with this post, having to do with the language we use on this forum and Leo uses in his work. The word I want to focus on is “belief.” There are two ways in which the word is used, and conflating them becomes problematic. 1. Layman’s definition- trusting that something is true without evidence/justification/direct experience (substitute in whatever fits your epistemology) 2. Philosophical definition- to think/hold that something is true The problem is that we use the word belief to refer to the layman’s definition exclusively, leaving no room for the philosophical definition. Using the word “belief” is treated as a revelation that the person using it has a poor epistemology. The layman’s definition is fine when we’re talking about religion or limiting beliefs, but for more serious intellectual topics there ends up being no proper word. If we want to say “Leo thinks X is true about politics,” we are forced to say “Leo has X political awakening” or “X political insights.” The problem is those terms come loaded with a lot of baggage—such as that what Leo is saying is true. We could use other words like “think” or “hold-to-be-true,” but they would be clunky or imprecise. I suggest we bite the bullet and use the word “belief.” I know that part of the reason for using the word “belief” in the standard way is the distinction between direct experience and concept. But consider this example— when someone awakens, before they didn’t hold-to-be-true that God exists, but now they do. We can just call this belief. Yes, what they hold to be true exists in an entirely different context than before, but they still hold it to be true. This all comes down to the inability of language to grasp ultimate reality, but we can still be careful with how we use language. Using the word "belief" correctly is one attempt to do so.

I’m asking this because I have sober awakenings about every 3 weeks (give or take)—usually induced by thinking about reality or nothing at all. I’m trying to get a sense of how common this is, and how it relates to others’ experiences.

Are philosophers who existed before science also science-brained then? Take Aristotle as an example. He existed before science (I guess you could argue he kind of invented it). The correct label for him is rationalist. I think what you're really critiquing is rationalism, not science.

Harry Mack is probably the best freestyle rapper alive. He practiced the skill from a young age and eventually monetized through YouTube. You can tell that he actually loves what he’s doing, and he brings joy to audiences whenever he freestyles. A couple lessons stand out to me. First, pick a unique skill to master so that your competition is smaller. Harry Mack’s chosen skill, freestyling, is pretty unique because few people do it and even fewer actually train it. The people who freestyle generally do it for fun because they like rap and don’t methodically practice it like he does. This makes it easier for Harry Mack to be one of, if not the, best at his skill. You also have to find a skill that people care about. Freestyle rapping is almost universally liked as it’s great showmanship. The low competition and universal appeal of Harry Mack’s skill is a recipe for success. Second, develop mastery. This is pretty obvious, but it’s clear that he wouldn’t have become so great at freestyling if not for his many years of deliberate practice. Once you pick your skill, you have to actually work on it. If you care about it enough, it becomes a labor of love.